Duolingo
by KatanaNoNeko
Summary: A drabble written from the prompt "I lied and said I could speak a different language to impress my crush but now he wants me to tutor him so I need to become fluent in Mandarin in 3 days HELP" given to me in an ask on Tumblr by doginshoe.


**A/N: This was a fun prompt to do! Although I changed the language to Japanese instead of Mandarin.**

 **Also, I am working on Togetherness and Lucid. Trust me. I apologize that y'all end up waiting like 2 to 6 weeks for updates that average only about 2-4k words.**

* * *

Natsu just stared at his screen, trying to figure out what the hell he'd just told Lucy. Why did he tell her that? What was he trying to accomplish!?

 _I decided I'm taking Japanese this next semester,_ she'd texted him, _To fill out my schedule a bit._

 _ **I know Japanese** , _he'd stupidly told her. He didn't know Japanese! Why did he say he did!?

 _Oh really?_

 ** _Yeah!_**

 _Well then, maybe you should teach me._

He'd messed up.

Horribly.

* * *

 ** _Gray, are you up!?_ **He speedily typed out in a new message. And Natsu waited, impatiently, for his friend to reply.

Gray himself was just getting out of the shower, excited to check his messages. He'd heard the text tone interrupt his music as he'd been rinsing the shampoo out of his hair and had hurriedly finished up, wanting to know what Juvia (he'd assumed) wanted to tell him.

He cursed, loudly, when he saw who it really was who'd rushed him out of the shower. **I was in the shower, jackass. What the hell do you want**? he answered, moody and annoyed now that he knew it hadn't been his girlfriend texting him (which made sense. It was after midnight and she'd given him a "good night" text nearly twenty minutes ago).

 ** _Please tell me you know Japanese!_**

Gray took a few moments to try and decipher _what the fuck_ Natsu was thinking. **Why the hell would I know Japanese!? No, scratch that, why do you need me to know Japanese?**

 ** _Uh…_**

Natsu didn't wanna explain it, sending a screenshot instead for Gray to read through.

 **…**

 **She's already your girlfriend, dude, why are you trying to impress her?**

 ** _I don't know! Just please, tell me you know Japanese and can teach me because I don't wanna disappoint her!_**

Gray rolled his eyes as he chuckled over Natsu's plight. **No, dude, I don't. I barely even know Spanish, and I took three years of it.**

 **Natsu groaned. _Yeah, I know, we were in class together._**

 **Why didn't you ask Levy? She's a lot more likely to know Japanese than I am. I think she does, actually.**

 ** _Yeah, I thought of that, but she'd just rat me out to Lucy! I figured that as much teasing as you'd do, you also wouldn't tell Lucy and so I went with you!_**

Gray laughed. What Natsu said was true. He'd be giving Natsu crap for this for years to come, but he wouldn't do that to the guy. Natsu had bailed him out when it came to Juvia and he had bailed Natsu out when it came to Lucy. They were there for each other, as much as they liked to deny it. **Did you see if Duolingo has a Japanese course?**

Now Natsu stared at his phone in confusion. **_What the fuck is a Duolingo?_**

Gray face-palmed. Duolingo had been their savior back in the aforementioned high school Spanish classes, but apparently Natsu was an idiot. Not that that wasn't already evident.

 **That language website? With the owl?** Without waiting for a reply, Gray scoffed. **You know what, I'll just look it up for you, hold on.** He took a few seconds on Google before he was copy-pasting a link for Duolingo's Japanese program to Natsu. **There, just do that for a while and maybe you can learn enough to be passable to Lucy. Not that I think you have a chance.**

 ** _Thank you and fuck you._**

* * *

Lucy sighed as she checked her phone again. It had been hours since she'd joked that Natsu should teach her Japanese and he still hadn't replied.

"Well, time to go to bed," she lamented, noticing the bright red numbers on her alarm clock that announced it was 3:06 in the morning. She grimaced, remembering she had to be at work at eight.

Turning the light off and crawling under the blankets, Lucy grinned widely when her phone buzzed again, hopeful that it was Natsu, since her other friends had since told her they were going to bed.

 ** _Konnichiwa,_** it read.

Lucy burst out laughing.

 _Konnichiwa! Ohayou gozaimasu!_ she texted back. Natsu started sweating buckets at her reply. What the fuck did that mean again? How come Lucy was speaking Japanese back!? _Nani o shiteru?_ she texted again.

"Uh…" Natsu struggled to come up with what he should say back to Lucy. Everything he'd learned from that stupid owl in the last three hours seemingly vanished into thin air with his nervousness. Then Lucy was calling him. Not knowing what else to do, he answered.

"Hello…?" he struggled to greet her through a suddenly dry throat.

And then Lucy was laughing. "What happened to the foreign language, Mr. I-Know-Japanese?"

"Uh… Konnichiwa?" he said to her again, it being the only thing he could apparently remember from three hours of Duolingo.

Lucy laughed again. "Natsu, I know you don't know Japanese. Stop trying to fool me. I was being sarcastic earlier."

Natsu laughed nervously. "Sorry… I don't know why I said I knew Japanese. I'm an idiot."

"Yeah, you are," she giggled.

"You're just always doing smart-person things like learning other languages and I guess I wanted to impress you."

Lucy smiled on her side of the phone. "Yeah, I figured. But you don't have to lie to impress me. I fell in love with _you_ and your idiotic self, and I don't need anything different."

"Man, I love you too, Luce. Although I'll never stop wondering how you fell in love with such an idiot," he laughed. "Oh yeah, how were you doing that earlier, anyways? The Japanese?"

Lucy giggled. "A little Duolingo goes a long way."

* * *

 **A/N: See you next time!**


End file.
